I talked to a guy at L.S. ok.with a jeep,with a radical 350 chevy ,running 12.5-1 compression , set up to run on E85, said it makes a ton of torque. said you have to set your jets 25% richer, and that it was rated at 105 octane,E89 was like 110 octane, said it sounded bad at low rpm( sounded fine to me),but when you wound it up it was all that+$2.35 a gal.If it will work on a ds , sound like the way to go . any thoughts?

 

i would also like to know and where do you buy e85 im in california

 

E-85 should run around 100-105 range as far as octane goes.

Now if you're running that in a flex fuel vehicle you're getting screwed by the way as your mileage drops through the floor and you're paying through the nose to run it. Might work as a cheap racing fuel though since the last I checked the high octane petroleum based stuff stuff was out of sight.

 

thats alot cheaper than race gas

 

I agree, if you do the cost per mile, the e85 is not cheaper, and most likely is more expensive. The milage drops dramaticly. Which makes sense, because the btu content is much lower than pure gas.
If you dont have EFI, then e85 could be a huge hassle. Its so much leaner than pure gas, that the carbs will need rejetting. Then if you go riding in an area which doesnt have e85 to refill with, the carb will be jetted way too rich.
Here in MN we have E85 pumps all over the place, and it seems like after everyone uses one tankful, and is shocked at the next filup by the horible drop in gas milage, they go back to normal gas.(which in MN , is a 10% blend)
Heres a couple of recent articles written on E85.

consumer reports

businessweek article

 

I stopped by the machine shop today to pick up a set of heads I was having reworked and asked about this topic. Several guys in the area are experimenting with building high compression/high performance race type engines to run on E-85 to take advantage of the higher octane. I guess no one is really sure yet how it is going to work but a few of the bleeding edge experimenters are wanting to try to get something on the street for spring. The most wicked sounding project for the E-85 they had in the works was a 572 cubic inch big block with multipoint fuel injection and nitrous. Something close to 900 hp without the nitrous. Should be pretty wild in a lightweight street car. Another guy is building a 327 but no one really knows much about it other than it is all aluminum.